To Kill a Mockingbird

'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.' A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the '30s.

The Castle

A land-surveyor, known only as K., arrives at a small village permanently covered in snow and dominated by a castle to which access seems permanently denied. K.'s attempts to discover why he has been called constantly run up against the peasant villagers, who are in thrall to the absurd bureaucracy that keeps the castle shut, and the rigid hierarchy of power among the self-serving bureaucrats themselves.

Justine: The Alexandria Quartet

Set amid the corrupt glamour and multiplying intrigues of Alexandria, Egypt, in the 1930s and 1940s, the novels of Durrell's Alexandria Quartet (of which this is the first) follow the shifting alliances - sexual, cultural and political - of a group of quite varied characters. In Justine, an English schoolmaster and struggling writer falls in love with a beautiful and mysterious Jewish woman who is married to a wealthy Egyptian.

Resurrection

When Prince Dmitri Nekhludov is called for jury duty on a murder case, he little knows how the experience will change his life. Faced with the accused, a prostitute, he recognizes Katusha, the young girl he seduced and abandoned many years before, and realizes his responsibility for the life of degradation she has been forced to lead. His determination to make amends leads him into the darkest reaches of the Tsarist prison system, and to the beginning of his spiritual regeneration.

Madame Bovary

Emma Bovary, a doctor's wife, seeks an escape from her dull life through having extra-marital affairs. Flaubert's novel scandalized its readers when it was first published in 1857, and it remains unsurpassed in its unveiling of character and society.

Peter says:"First class performance"

Publisher's Summary

Olenin, a young nobleman who is disenchanted with city life, finds himself caught up in the wild beauty of the Caucasus and the simplicity of its people.

In the setting of what is present-day Kazakhstan, Tolstoy examines two psychological problems. The first dilemma is that of a young man who desires both fulfilling love and a place as a respected member of society. The other is the difficulty of a primitive society to accept domination by a higher culture that has no understanding of the traditions it asks its colonists to cast aside.

One of Tolstoy's lesser-known novels, The Cossacks is one of the finest pictures of Cossack society in all of Russian literature.

Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude.

Published by arrangement with Alcazar AudioWorks; (P)2006 Alcazar AudioWorks

I can't agree with Chris above. Somebody has to translate Tolstoy into English or most of us in the US couldn't read his books. For example, I loved the Audible version of Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" but had a hard time following "The Brothers Karamazov." A professor friend of mine read a different translation and it's one of his favorites.

This book could be a quick way to see if you want to do "War and Peace".

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Chris

Oak Park, IL, USA

28/05/07

Overall

"The Cockney Cossacks."

Why Blackstone Audiobooks' reader felt the need to anglicanize this title, employing ridiculous British accents to define the relative social classes of its Russian characters, is beyond this listener's understanding. Add to that the nauseating synthesizer interstitial music which separates the chapters and you end up with a patronizing Mary Poppins-esque Tolstoy indeed. Do not waste your money on this recording unless such esthetic "choices" appeal to you.

4 of 8 people found this review helpful

Report Inappropriate Content

If you find this review inappropriate and think it should be removed from our site, let us know. This report will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action.